romakimmy's profile

romakimmy
519
Location: Roma Italia
Gender: Female, but have been told I have some serious coglioni
Member since: June 20, 2002
Last visit: July 19, 2010

romakimmy has posted 0 links and 74 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 2 comments to the Locker Room.

Sports Bio

As an American living in Italy for the past 4 years, I have become a bit of a footie freak. Euro 2000 made me weep, even with a fetish for Zizou.

The SS Lazio-AS Roma derbies are always memorable, and despite being a hardcore Juventus fan, Roma's win of last year's scudetto after an 18 year drought was memorable for the almost 2 week long celebration.

As a side note, having come to footie fandom here in Italy, it took me a while to figure out terminology in English. ie fuori gioco = offsides

Formula 1 is also becoming an interest.

Recent Comments

Barcelona are European Champions

On a side note, I wonder if any English fans got stabbed in the ass today.

From what I saw on the news late last night, 2. Both done by Barca fans, one in the thigh, the other I don't remember.

Considering the amount of back n' forth chanting (some of it rather nasty) passing under my window all day yesterday and mass drunkenness despite the alcohol ban, I was expecting worse.

Good game, and I always love seeing the smirk get wiped off C.Ronaldo's poncy face. :D

posted by romakimmy at 03:16 AM on May 28, 2009

Milan legend Paolo Maldini disrespected by the curva on his final day at The San Siro

From the Guardian article:

But the one thing that Maldini has never done is kowtow to fan opinion, and it is for this alone that a more selfish element resent him. When Milan supporters caused a game between the Rossoneri and Parma to be suspended for more than five minutes by throwing oranges and other objects on to the field during their miserable 199798 season, Maldini was publicly critical of their behaviour. After Milan won the league the following year, he retired quickly to the dressing room to celebrate with Alessandro Costacurta instead of staying out to thank the fans.

That was not the only occasion on which he refused to condone supporter protests, but the fact that such instances are remembered at all reflects only on the pettiness of such fans...

So yes, a small group* of idiot fans who think holding petty grudges is the ne plus ultra of being a fan.

*as in small percentage of the total amount of Milan fans.

posted by romakimmy at 12:32 PM on May 26, 2009

Milan legend Paolo Maldini disrespected by the curva on his final day at The San Siro

The two signs against Maldini were:

Grazie capitano: sul campo campione infinito, ma hai mancato di rispetto a chi ti ha arricchito! Thank you captain: on the pitch champion without end, but you disrepected those who made you rich!

Per i tuoi 25 anni di gloriosa carriera sentiti ringraziamenti da coloro che hai definito mercenari e pezzenti For your 25 years of glorious career listen to the thanks from those who you defined as mercenary and tramps.

I totally didn't understand the motive behind this, but from this article (sorry, in Italian), it seems the ultras' ire stems from a comment in 2005 when Maldini said he was proud not to be one of them (I'm guessing there might be more comments he made as well). Dumb. I totally agree with Spalletti's sentiment.

There were about 4 other signs against Berlusconi as well, which will always tickle my funnybone, especially in the current political climate, which frankly sucks.

posted by romakimmy at 05:45 AM on May 25, 2009

Q. and A.: The Special One, José Mourinho

I can profess my admiration for him much more easily now that he's not in English football.

Hmm, is that what it takes? Since day one of him stepping foot in Italy, I've found him to be a boorish prick. Maybe I'll be able to appreciate his specialness after he leaves Italy. :D

posted by romakimmy at 02:01 PM on March 13, 2009

Best soccer/football goal celebrations, 1

especially taking off the shirt, because that's considered unsportsmanlike. Which totally sucks, as my oogling time is reduced to the post game shirt swap. :P

posted by romakimmy at 05:13 AM on June 30, 2008

"This fella, Ronaldo, he's a cod"

What everyone else has already said. Super talented player, but the outright arrogance & wah-wah bullshit makes me uncharacteristically wish someone would do him bodily harm so he'd actually have something to cry over. However, I'd be thrilled if Match of the Day spent ten minutes at the end of every show running through all the planks that dived that weekend, possibly over some amusing music, with Lawrenson doing his horrible puns throughout. Every Monday on a satirical news program, there's a segment called Striscia lo striscione which highlights the more amusing fan banners & takes the piss out of various incidents in Serie A. The last minute or so is always dedicated to Tutti giù per terra (Everybody hit the ground), 'awards' for the dumbest dives of the weekend, usually accompanied with a girly, fake sounding "OOOH!" in the slo-mo replay (and snarky commentary as well, for anyone who speaks Italian).

posted by romakimmy at 08:58 AM on April 26, 2008

Fabio Capello to be crowned as England manager.

Man, I've been wanting to see Capello coach on a national level ever since Lippi left. Pity it's the wrong nation...(In the sense that Italy's currently stuck with Donadoni, a coach who was fired from Livorno for feck's sake. I've been praying that he'd get sacked and replaced with Capello. God doesn't like me, apparently ;) As a side note, Capello's been doing color commentary during this post-Real Madrid/pre-England national downtime, and I've really enjoyed it. He's fairly blunt, yet diplomatic, usually couching criticisms in the 'if it was me' caveat.

posted by romakimmy at 08:25 AM on December 15, 2007

Violence Threatens Italian Soccer

I doubt that the Highway restaurant clash was a matter of coincidence. I do. If you read my recap above, the purported clash was between Juve & Lazio fans. Lazio fans were heading to Milan for Inter-Lazio. Juve fans would have been heading presumably to Parma. The purported fight happened in Arezzo, which is near Florence. Care to tell me how an Autogrill near Florence is a 'local Inter Milan hangout'? And I beg to differ that by following a club one must support the whole kit n' kaboodle, such as dumb political undercurrents. I'll also beg to differ that by going on a roadtrip with some friends to see an important away game, making a stop for petrol, panini, or a piss means that you were an Ultra looking for trouble. If the cop had accidentally shot a driver on the 6 lanes of traffic that separated the two Autogrills, I'd give even odds that footie wouldn't have been invoked by the media. Please note this is not in defense of the idiots who ran amok Sunday; but the powers that be fell down on the job Sunday and the Ultras took the resulting opportunity to do what they do best - be assholes.

posted by romakimmy at 11:42 AM on November 13, 2007

Violence Threatens Italian Soccer

The completely surreal situation on Sunday was thanks to a whole slew of fuck-ups on all sides. The inital story that broke was that a Lazio fan was killed around 9am Sunday morning by a cop during a fight between Lazio & Juve fans at a highway restaraunt stop. And of course the media jumped on the violent hooligans story straight away without getting all the facts first, with headlines that read along the lines of "Hooligan Highway Fights; 1 Dead". By all accounts of eyewitnesses and manager/employees of the diner, there was some minor scuffles going on in the parking lot, but by the time the police on the other side of the highway reacted, all parties involved were calmed down and driving off or about to be. There is also some discussion about whether or not Gabrielle was involved; he's a popular DJ in the discoteques here in Rome, had been working until 6am, and left for Milan at 7am. Also, he was passionate about footie, but not a part of the hooligan Ultras and only followed the away games when it was a major game (ie Inter-Lazio). In any case, he was sitting in the back of the car when the shots were fired. As seen on the news before they wrapped the car up in plastic and carted it off, the hole in the car window is an almost perfectly clean bullet shaped hole at about chest/neck level; no spidering of cracked glass around the entry point. Suss. The cop in question claims he shot one warning shot in the air and while he was running to cross the highway, another shot accidentially went off. There is an eyewitness report that says the cop assumed shooting stance and fired off two rounds. In either case, the cop's badge should be taken away. In the former, a supposed expert cop (as claimed by the Arezzo commissioner) let off an errant shot in a populated parking lot while running towards a busy 6 lane highway. Even the warning shot is suss; what the hell was it for? "Hi, my partner and I are now going to play SuperCop and run across six lanes of traffic to subdue a group of young men fighting.*" In the latter case, lock the bastard up; what if he had instead hit a father driving on the highway, possibly causing a huge accident? At this point in the day (noonish), Inter-Lazio is cancelled, the other games are unsure, and the media are still playing up the Footie Fan aspect even though the details are begining to trickle in. In a few cities, spontaneous demonstrations uniting fans/Ultras from opposite sides of the field decry the police and call for a suspension of all games, in line with the suspension of all games after the death of Officer Raciti last February. So you have a tragic incident conflated with footie thanks to the media, and demonstrating fans/Ultras calling for all games to be suspended. Of course the Football Commissioner decides to let the other daytime games go on. In Bergamo, police are recalled from the the stadium, allowing Ultras to bring a sewer cover into the stadium & smash the protective glass barrier, leading to the desired suspension of the game. Everyone's nerves are on a trip wire; fans, police, refs, players. The games that did go on were not pretty and there were a slew of red cards. At 6pm, only two hours before game time, was it announced that the Roma-Cagliari game would be suspended "for security reasons". Brilliant move there. You've now given pissed off Ultras of both Lazio & Roma time to conviene at the stadium and an 'excuse' to cause mayhem. And now it's turned political as well: The Right have called for the Minister of Internal Security to step down, while the Left claim that the Ultras are largel controlled by extreme Right groups. There's been a spate of police brutality incidents that have gone undereported lately, such as a man arrested for growing marijuana in his house dying in isolation after being severly beaten by officers. Instead of that issue getting the attention it deserves, the media's initial sensationalism of "Ooga Booga Hooligans" allowed the incident to be purloined by Ultras and politicans alike for their own uses. Until Sunday, this year there had been no outbreaks of violence at the stadiums - one idiot who threw a petard during a Juve game was subdued by surrounding fans until security managed to haul him off. But the combined mistakes in handling this incident by police, media, and the Football Commission managed to pour the petrol and light the match. /my take * because it wasn't clear from that distance that the young men were footie fans. Also the inital line from the commissioner was 2 warning shots fired in the air.

posted by romakimmy at 09:06 AM on November 13, 2007

Morality and soccer 2: Catholic church takes over Italian pro team AC Ancona.

Will they enter the World Cup? become members of UEFA? Who gets be eligible - any Catholic? I had assumed that they would start out in a lower league like C1 or C2 and work their way up. Again, I heard this during said charity game and assumed that the squad playing (Swiss Guards) was the target of the hearsay. Digging slightly deeper, the Vatican has had an internal competition for years, the Vatican Cup, which is one of those little pieces of trivia I had forgotten about. And a second tournament I wasn't aware of, the Clericus Cup, sprung up earlier this year. The former is for Vatican workers (ie aforementioned Swiss Guards, Vatican museum curators) and the latter is teams from seminaries & pontifical colleges.

posted by romakimmy at 07:33 AM on October 17, 2007

Morality and soccer 2: Catholic church takes over Italian pro team AC Ancona.

Huh. I had heard that Vatican would be fielding a pro squad soon, but I thought that it would be the surprisingly good Swiss guards/priest team I saw at an annual charity game.

posted by romakimmy at 04:24 AM on October 15, 2007

It was a close game... until it started.

AS Roma played like absolute shit last night. I haven't seen an Italian team fall apart like that ever1. My romanista SO was despondent at 2-0, changing to flippant by the pitifull 7-1 ending. "It's worse when there is a small chance that you could have won." Unfortunately for Spalletti, Taddei was benched at the last minute with an injury and he (Spalletti) had 17 year old primavera players on the bench as substitution possibilities. Might have done a sight better than Totti et co., though. 1All 9 years since I've started following calcio. And while using one man's sorrow for another's gain is not something I usually condone, I at least have some retaliation ammo for the next time I becomes target pratice for being a Juventina.

posted by romakimmy at 09:00 AM on April 11, 2007

A Sad Day in Italy

Addendum: If they were really serious about taking extra security measures, they should have moved the game to a neutral (read: outside Sicily) stadium. Usually they do this as a penalty for prior incidents, but with all the hype I saw on the news about moving the game to Friday in the interests of public order, I have to conclude that they didn't do this because both sets of fans would have thrown a hissy fit. And maybe due to tickets having been sold already; right now I can't find a good article on exactly when they decided to move the game.

posted by romakimmy at 09:28 AM on February 03, 2007

A Sad Day in Italy

I can't say that I've personally seen an increase in hostile atmosphere as Fence says, but I haven't been going to the stadium as often as I used to, mainly due to increased ticket prices, the fact that I couldn't drag my Romanista S.O. to a non-derby Lazio game even under penalty of death, and my beloved Juve currently residing in B. However, I have to wonder just how stupid whoever drew up the year's schedule really is. Apparently, they realised at the last minute that they had scheduled the Catania-Palermo derby (always a hotly contested game) on a Saturday night of a major Sicilian holiday weekend. Fucking brilliant, boys. And thus the game was moved to Friday night for 'security reasons', which in my opinion was a pretty useless move. It's a Friday night, eve of a major regional holiday. A large majority probably probably did the whole fare il ponte, meaning they took off Friday to extend their holiday weekend to four days instead of three. Yeah, moving it to Friday did a whole lotta good fellas. On top of this, your police escorted bus of Palermo fans (away team) arrives to the game late because the driver got lost. This means they and their police escort are sitting ducks for the idiot 'Ultras' who hang out around the outside of the stadium and whose main interest is looking to start a fight. Hopefully, when deciding on new measures they'll include a pinch more common sense to avoid giving these types of idiots another excuse to go hog wild.

posted by romakimmy at 07:34 AM on February 03, 2007

Edgar Davids going back to Ajax- not to Dallas.

Pity about Davids; I was hoping to see him play again when I make the trek back to D-Town. Ronaldo is getting roasted in the (Italian) media for his pudginess. It's a bit head scratching that Milan bought him. He's not the Shevchenko they need right now. If this can be done over a soccer game, then by bully I'll make the drive. *snort* Might be possible. I took him and the youngest uncle to Lazio-Juve in 2003. Highlights from the two of them included:

  • "So are there cheerleaders?" "Um, no."
  • "Why aren't there cheerleaders?"
  • Lazio's Curva Nord unfurling a Curva-sized drawing of 3 upraised middle fingers. "That's why there aren't cheerleaders."
  • Upon seeing Lazio's powder blue home uniforms & Juve's (at the time) pink away uniforms: "What, is it girls against boys?"
  • Flares & water bottles tossed onto the pitch. "This is also why we don't have cheerleaders."
All in all, I had fun.

posted by romakimmy at 12:11 PM on February 02, 2007